Healing through Native American Imagery

October 17 & 18, 2015

Margaret Vasington

Throughout history, art, dreams, myths, and legends have intimately connected animals and humans. In this workshop we will invite an image of an animal to appear from each Chakra. With their special gentle humor, unexpected directness and startling wisdom these animals may guide us on crucial next steps for healing and moving forward. The workshop is experiential. There will be an opportunity to share journeys (if you choose) and discuss the parallels between this work and what you are learning from the theories of In-Depth Body Psychotherapy and Subtle Energy Healing. The ability to image and a fondness of animals is neither necessary nor required for the weekend!

Working with animal imagery will:

Build a pathway to higher consciousness

Learn to trust your own inner wisdom

Create supportive connections with other participants for your own healing

Applying Indigenous Healing Practices in the Modern World

November 7 & 8, 2015

*Offsite

Naomi Lubin-Alpert & Dorothy Mason

We live in a culture where we are strongly conditioned to stay busy, work hard and improve ourselves. This workshop is an invitation, in these challenging times, to come and BE with others who long to rest into a deep inner quiet, listen with ears of their Heart, and be informed by the intelligence of Love. Our time together will include meditation, walking the labyrinth, exploring the West Gate on the Sacred Wheel, journaling, creating prayers, listening to spirit, and being on the land. Also included are lectures on how our negativity and our childhood trauma affect our connection to inner peace.

Bonding and Attachment… The Foundation of Healing

November 7 & 8, 2015

Denise Soucie

The bonding we received as children is the basis for how we attach and form relationships as adults. This workshop will help us understand the general nature of bonding and the specific bonding that you received that impacts every aspect of your life.

Through discussion and experiential work participants will:

Learn to appreciate the impact of your early childhood bond on their lives

Release old negative bonding

Create the kind of bonding that supports aliveness, compassion and faith

Understanding that positive bonding is essential in developing compassion for clients

Somatic Expressive Therapy

November 14 & 15, 2015

Dan Leven

One of the beauties of HFI’s Body Psychotherapy is its capacity to use language and non-verbal means of processing as a powerful way for the therapist to reach the client and the client to explore and express the truth of what they feel. Somatic Expressive Therapy helps people access the wounds and blocks that lives within our body-mind and move limitation towards freedom and painful or difficult emotions toward acceptance and transformation. In this workshop participants will:

Learn unique, non-verbal means of processing developed as a part of Somatic Expressive Therapy.

Experience an integration of mindfulness with the intuitive vehicle of the expressive arts as a way to open yourself up to the truth of what you feel.

Experience a primary way of knowing your experience that is preverbal, that involves imagery, movement, sound and eventually words.

The Impact of Mindfulness on Healing Trauma

January 16 & 17, 2016

David Gilroy & Sylvia Gingras-Baker

The practice of mindfulness helps us develop and deepen a peaceful space of awareness where we can observe and welcome our moment to moment responses. These responses serve as our sense of direction in the work with clients in order to:

Create a mindful practice where you can observe and welcome your moment to moment responses

Maintain balance in the face of your client’s imbalance

Teach your clients mindfulness as a way to maintain center and ground

Give yourself and your clients a second chance at healthy attachment

The Emotional & Energetic Roots of Physical Pain and Illness… The Pathways to Healing

January 30 & 31, 2016

Stuart Alpert

Our life struggles include our illnesses and all of our aches and pains. In our culture, the most common view is that we “get” a disease or illness, as if it happened to us as some sort of accidental, bad luck. We tend to say “I got arthritis” or “I got tinnitus,” or “I’ve developed a pain in my neck.” This idea feeds the belief that we have no control and are a victim of whatever pain or illness happens to strike. The opposite extreme purports that we have created our own health problems, so we should be able, if we were aligned enough, to “un-create them.” This latter concept can lead to self-blame and guilt. These feelings can be counterproductive, creating even more stress.

In truth, we are not to blame for the symptoms and illnesses we develop, nor are the symptoms accidental.

In this workshop we will:

Explore abusive childhood bonding and its impact on DNA and the development of tension, pain and illness

Learn how to work with clients to positively impact their physical symptoms

Conflict Resolution for Couples… A Buddhist Perspective

March 5 & 6, 2016

Donna Baker-Gilroy & David Gilroy

Conflict is an inherent and necessary part of all relationships. We will explore a Zen Buddhist approach to working through and growing from these conflicts. This process was developed by Thich Nhat Hanh and the monks and nuns at Plum Village in France.

One part of the HFI Body Centered Psychotherapy Training Program is 27 Wednesday evening presentations (from September to April) that are didactic and experiential in nature. Anyone interested in getting a "taste" of our program is welcome to attend one of these presentations. Call HFI at 860-236-6009 to let us know you would like to attend.